


Heroes Are Forever

by happyhallodreams



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Everyone is like 16/17, F/M, Identity Reveal, Secret Identity, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-09 07:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12271914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyhallodreams/pseuds/happyhallodreams
Summary: It's been three years since Ladybug and Chat Noir came on the scene and things don't look different, but they are. Marinette's worried she's burning out. Adrien wants to leave his civilian life behind. They're managing but they wish they didn't have to, and secret identities only make it harder.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've written/am writing so I'm not sure what my processs'll be yet but hopefully I'll be updating this every week or week and a half and it should end up being about 15 chapters but that's just a first guess. Anyway here's my contribution to the fandom and I hope you like it!

It’s funny that people are always so sure of things that will never happen. Marinette once thought you could see the whole world atop the Eiffel Tower. She thought that the stars blinked in and out of existence each night. And more recently, she thought that being Ladybug was a secret no one would ever know; she could disappear into the Parisian streets every night and be free of every mundane worry. But suddenly the mundane mixed with the magical and she wasn’t sure she could tell them apart anymore. In class she saw Adrien run his fingers through his hair, it parted and ruffled and he lost just a touch of his carefully crafted demeanor. Then he leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head and suddenly she realized. She spent every night with this boy for the past year. They shared secrets, had inside jokes, protected each other, and maybe through some act of divine intervention she knew him in this life too.

Maybe there should have been a dramatic reveal, maybe their miraculouses should have timed out before they could get away, maybe Hawk Moth should have revealed their identities, but this was… less traumatic to say the least (if she was right).

“Hello, earth to Marinette,” Alya said as she waved her hand in front of Marinette’s face, “the bell rang like a minute ago, spacey much?”

“Oh uh, I guess I’m just tired.”

“Ha! More like daydreaming about Adrien.”

Well she wasn’t wrong.

“Oh no, was it really that obvious.”

“Only to someone who knows you as well as I do,” Alya said reassuringly.

They walked out of the classroom together and managed to make it as far as the courtyard before running into Chloe. Some days Mari would swear that she waited for them to get out of the teacher’s earshot just to bother them, well mostly her.

“Saw you staring at Adrien,” Chloe crooned, “too bad there’s clearly no chemistry, otherwise you would look almost cute together.”

“Chloe, it’s not staring when he’s just in front of the teacher, you may not be aware but that’s where you’re supposed to be looking.” Alya shot back.

Alya was a saint Marinette thought, there’s no way she could have thought of that on her own.

“Whatever, I’m just doing Marinette a favor and letting her know how hopeless her little crush is, anyway let’s get out of here Sabrina, we’ve got places to be.”

Chloe and Sabrina sauntered away leaving a fuming Alya behind. Marinette had gotten used to it over the years and wasn’t affected nearly as much anymore. Was she flustered? Yes. Was she pissed? No.

“I can’t believe how rude she is, someday she’s gonna get in trouble and I sure as hell won’t help her.”

“Come on Alya let’s just leave it.”

“Girl you’ve got way more honor than I ever will, I don’t know how you do it,” Alya sighed shaking her head.

“Like you said one day she’ll get what’s coming, but for now? No big deal.”

“Fine, fine,” Alya said, “but she did make a good point, you were kinda staring at Adrien.”

“So,” Marinette laughed, “like that’s new.”

“Whatever you say Marinette.”

“Hey Tiki, I think I know who Chat is.” Now that they were back in the safety of Marinette’s room she had to bring it up. The kwami normally slept nestled into her purse but for now she was a lounging in front of a half-eaten plate of chocolate chip cookies.

“Really Marinette? That’s great news! Are you going to say something?”

“I don’t know, I don’t even know if it is good news. Once I know I can’t take it back.”

“Sometimes you just need to take a little risk, maybe it’ll be easier to work together once everything is out in the open. Who do you think it is?”

“The more I think about it the more unrealistic it sounds but I think it’s Adrien,” Marinette said as she dropped her head into her hands, “what if I start acting like Ladybug around Adrien and Marinette around Chat? What if start acting like an idiot around them both?”

“Maybe you should just tell him Marinette.”

“But what if I’m wrong.” She was sure she wasn’t but that didn’t help the paranoia.

“Then you tell Chat, if you just ask him there’s no chance of getting embarrassed in front of Adrien and there’s no risking your identity. It’s perfectly safe.”

“Yeah I guess.”

Tiki was making perfect sense and Marinette knew it, but she wasn’t sure she could deal with the change. She longed for the early days of Ladybug and Chat Noir. It was so simple, but the longer it went on the more she had to come to terms with the fact that this was her life. She couldn’t give it up without letting all of Paris down. Maybe even all of France. Maybe even the world. Once the novelty wore off she was left feeling like she could never have a normal life. She loved being Ladybug she really did, but she did have to make sacrifices. Her grades suffered, she was always grounded for sneaking out and missing class. And there were only so many times she could handle Alya getting close to finding out her identity, or worse getting hurt trying. Speaking of Alya, she was pretty much the only friend she managed to keep over the past two years. Everyone else fell through the cracks as Marinette tried (and usually failed) to juggle school and her family and the bakery and her superhero secret identity and friends. It was about three and’s to many and that was the only one she could afford to lose even a little bit. There were times when she couldn’t help but believe she would have to pick between being Ladybug and everything else. Still she refused to even entertain the idea of giving up her second life, it was a part of her, a part of her that she loved more than anything. And the idea that Adrien was Chat made her feel like maybe she could have some semblance of a normal life without sacrificing that.


	2. Chapter Two

Adrien couldn’t wait for class to be over, the teacher droned on and on about whatever subject this was (Geography? History? He honestly couldn’t tell you.) and there was no end in sight. School was boring and stressful and the only good thing about it was that he wasn’t home. He spent all of his free time as Chat these days, even when it was the day, even when Ladybug was nowhere to be found, even when there were no akumas roaming the streets. His father finally let him have a little more freedom and the second he didn’t need to have a bodyguard escort him to school he took full advantage of it. He’d take long, overly complicated routes home and stop petty crimes as he saw them. Sometimes he’d walk kids home or just stop and talk to them. Like everything he did this took its toll. He’d get back late, miss time with friends, and usually forego his homework. His father wasn’t happy to say the least. The only thing keeping him from getting his bodyguard physically attached to his side was that he was never late for photo shoots. 

When he was Chat he only had to focus on one thing, well maybe two; keeping people safe and having fun. To be fair, protecting people is a pretty big thing to have to focus on but it was worth it. It was comfortable and he knew exactly how to act. By now everything came naturally to the young hero, and working with Ladybug made it even easier. They way they worked together was effortless, they responded to each other’s body language and facial expressions without thinking, almost as if they had their own language they didn’t even know they developed. 

Everything was easy with Ladybug. It was no pressure and there was always a way out if things were too much, not that Adrien ever wanted that, but it was nice to have the option. She was brave and selfless in a way that made him want to be better, and he could only hope that she rubbed off on him the more time they spent together. Half the reason he was willing to become Chat Noir was just how cool it would be, but she made him see that there was more to it than that.

He grabbed his bag as soon as he heard the bell ring and he was out of the room well before Alya snapped Marinette back into reality behind him. Unfortunately at Plagg’s insistence he was taking the day off from his usual heroics. It was more for Plagg than it was Adrien, but far be it from him to say no, they weren’t exactly his powers after all. He supposed his father would be happy at least. He said goodbye to Nino and went home. Maybe he took a few extra turns and maybe he stopped to help a young man carrying far too many boxes, but he did go home. Maybe he just took an extra thirty minutes.

“Adrien, I see you’re home...early,” his father said. He wasn’t happy (but then again when was he) and one of two things was about to happen; he’d shut himself in his study and this was the last they would see of each other for an undisclosed amount of time or he’d threaten him with the reappearance of both his bodyguard and finely detailed schedule. There was a time when Adrien wasn’t sure which was worse, but more and more he found himself wishing for the former.

After a very pointed silence Gabriel began speaking as if he didn’t even notice the tension in the room and certainly as if it wasn’t his fault.

“I’ve scheduled a photo shoot for Sunday morning, please try not to look as though you start and end all of your days by snorting cocaine.”

Harsh.

And just like that he’d left the room.

Adrien spent the rest of the day in his room and if he was being perfectly honest with himself, he didn’t know what to do with a day off anymore. He was tense. He was tired. He was stressed. Shouldn’t those be things you feel when you don’t have all day to yourself? But it was fine. He did his homework, practiced piano, studied Chinese, let himself breathe. Everything he did before he became Chat. He even had a conversation with Nino where he was completely involved. That shouldn’t have felt like an achievement but it did. He felt bad that Nino was one of the things in his life he started to let slip away. He knew he took him for granted but the sad truth was that being Chat was more important to him sometimes.

For once he went to bed early. And before he fell asleep he found himself thinking, not for the first time, that he needed to tell someone. He was setting himself up for failure this way, working both himself and Plagg to the bone for no other reason than he could, and didn’t have anyone to help him slow down, or even to cover for him. Everyday he ran the very real risk of getting hurt or exposed and if it happened the only person that could help him handle the blow of losing half of himself had her own secret to worry about. How did Ladybug handle it? Did she even, or was she like Adrien, making up for lost sleep in some unassuming classroom in one of the hundreds of schools in Paris. 

Someday he would know, and, not for the first time, he hoped it would be someday soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so school's crazy, work's crazy, you know the drill. What really matters is I may have to rethink the time I plan to have between chapters. But here it is, hopefully next chapter comes out sooner and thanks for being patient!


End file.
